2009 ED350 Blog

Reflective Journal

2009-11-24T13:51:00.000-08:00

During my time in my Technology in the Classroom class, I have learned many things about educational technology. Even at the beginning of the class, we discussed what educational technology is (and what it is not). Educational technology is not limited to high-tech gizmos; educational technology is any type of technology that teachers can utilize in the classrooms to aid in learning. This can even include a whiteboard and markers. It can also include the high-tech gizmos, though; of which, I learned a lot about. I learned all about various types of technology that can be used in the classroom – from clickers to Power Point to educational websites. As I learned about how to use these, however, I began to think about WHEN I might use them. I began to reflect upon how accessible computers may be in my classrooms, how much free time my students might have to explore the wonderful sources I discovered, and more. It really got me thinking about the role of educational technology actually in the classroom.

While I did learn a lot about educational technology, I also know that I will face some challenges as a teacher, as I attempt to move from the “familiarization” level to higher levels of technology use. Essentially, expert teachers are experts with technology use. To increase my expertise of technology, I will definitely have to keep learning! Teachers get the luxury of being full-time students, in that we are always learning. In the case of educational technology, teachers must certainly keep up with the times! Even the use of computers in the classroom has changed drastically in the past 10 years. I can only imagine how much different classroom technology may be when I am teaching. I will also need to ensure that I stay updated on the current technology. What good would it be for me to master all of the applications we have gone over in my class, just to forget all of it by the time I am in a classroom? And these are just a couple of the issues that I will face as a teacher in the future.

Of the applications that we have learned about in my class, there are some in which I improved greatly, and there are some that I will still need to improve in. Before this class, I had barely or never worked with Power Point, Movie Maker, Audacity, and more. Through the class, however, I think that I have fairly mastered these applications. I created a Power Point with 3D planets rotating around the sun, a movie with actual video footage of me teaching, and 2 podcasts – one that introduces myself and one that teaches a sample lesson! I enjoyed working with these programs very much, and I do believe that my use of them has improved. However, I think that I would still like to improve in my familiarity with integrating sources. I seemed to have a few issues during the course in mixing my creations – such as posting podcasts or videos in another file to display them. Of course, most of my trouble here was because I had used a newer version of the application to make the file than the application on the school computer that I was working on. This caused some formatting issues, which caused more issues when mixing my files. I think most of the issues I faced could be solved mostly by just using one computer with the same application types, etc. But overall, I did learn a lot from the class that will certainly help me apply technology in the classroom.

Week of Nov. 24

2009-11-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

This week we only have class on Tuesday - we are out Thursday for Thanksgiving break! Today we have to turn in our blogs, our reflective journal essay, our Movie Maker assignment, and our Excel exercises (phew). I think that my Movie Maker assignment turned out pretty well. I had fun with it, and I continued my space theme that I've been using all semester. I had never uploaded anything to YouTube before, so I think that doing this assignment helped introduce me to that. I had also never made anything with Movie Maker, which can be a fun tool to make presentations for the class. I know that my grandmother is a college professor (at UAH) who has an online class. For this, she has to make movies of herself giving the lectures to give to the students. Although I am not teaching at a college level, I can see how this would be especially useful in that sense.
The excel exercises seemed very easy...but I spent an entire school year in 7th grade in Keyboarding class, where we learned how to type and how to use basic operating programs like Word and Excel. So I am already very familiar with functions, etc. I also help my parents with their checking system in Excel. My mom is not very computer-savvy, so I formatted the spreadsheet for her so that she only has to plug in the numbers and it calculates everything for her every month.

Week of Nov. 17

2009-11-24T12:30:00.000-08:00

This week we worked on Movie Maker and Excel. Tuesday was our last day to turn in our portfolio links. I did this, and I feel pretty good about my webpage (although I did have a lot of formatting issues from using different versions of programs). I have never used Movie Maker or YouTube (for uploading, at least), so this week has a lot of new information for me. The Movie Maker assignment seems pretty cool. And I LOVE that we can skip the final exam if we do well on it! I know I am going to do mine in the same theme I've used all semester - space. It just seems easier that way. Movie Maker seems like a neat application. I think it could definitely be used creatively in classrooms. Excel I have had a lot of experience with already, so I don't think that these exercises should take me too much time.

Week of Nov. 10

2009-11-15T21:21:00.000-08:00

Our portfolio deadline got pushed back to the 17th (woohoo), so I actually spent most of my time on finishing mine up and adding the final touches. I'm really happy with how my portfolio is turning out. I hope it will get plenty of good use in the future. We also got introduced to our Movie Maker assignment, which seems pretty interesting to me. I've never used it before, so it seems like it would be very beneficial to me. I'm looking forward to using it more (though right now I'm still concentrating on DreamWeaver!).

Week of Oct. 27

2009-11-07T23:53:00.000-08:00

This week we had our second exam, which I did pretty well on. There really wasn't anything on there that I felt uncomfortable with. We mostly just worked on our portfolios...which, thankfully, we have plenty of time to work on. Right now I'm just concentrating on making mine "pretty." I'm setting up links, but I'll actually link the items later. I think that this assignment is one of the most useful ones we will have in this class, as it actually serves us throughout our college life. I'm looking forward to getting it done and seeing how it turns out!

Week of Nov. 3

2009-11-07T12:50:00.001-08:00

We did not have class on the 3rd this week, I missed class on the 5th, as I was sick...so I honestly do not have much to report for this week. I mostly just worked on my portfolio more at home. It is due on Thursday of next week, so it's time to start wrapping it up. I already have it looking like I want it to. Now I just need to actually type up the information that goes in it.

Week of Oct. 13

2009-11-02T08:56:00.000-08:00

This week we worked on our PowerPoint exercises. I really had fun with this. I decided to make my PowerPoint on the same topic as my podcast lesson - space. There were honestly some things that I wanted to do with it that PowerPower simply does not support (such as a bouncing satellite roaming the screen like a screensaver during the whole presentation)...I asked Mr. Dean about them, but he confirmed that, while it would be neat, PowerPoint just cannot support it. It was all extra stuff, however, so it did not take anything away from my actual presentation. I still had many interactive parts to my presentation, such as orbiting planets (presented in order, with their names) and planets that could fly in and out with information about them. Since our PowerPoint had to be made in kiosk mode, I intended for my PowerPoint to be (hypothetically) used by students individually. I just think that kiosk mode is best used in that capacity, since the students could then control their own pace of learning. It also allows for it to be more interactive.

Week of Oct. 6

2009-10-08T08:55:00.002-07:00

This week we only have class on Tuesday - we're off Thursday for Fall Break (woohoo!). Tuesday we just went over more aspects of PowerPoint (the less commonly known aspects). Most of the things we went over I already knew from either the tutorial or from playing around on my PowerPoint project over the weekend. One thing I did not know was how to make the texts individually enter on Kiosk mode (by adding a button or something to trigger the entrance). That was neat - and really helpful for the future.

I'm really having fun creating the PowerPoint stuff. It's fun to play with...though it's good for educational purposes, too. :) I had no idea that you could actually draw stuff in PowerPoint. The image I made for my PowerPoint image was a checkerboard...though I did not simply make a few red and black squares...I made the board and the checkers all 3D and presented it at an angle that emphasizes both the facts and allows for better shadows. I even added jagged edges on the checkers to make them more life-like. It was so fun to make!

Week of Sept. 29

2009-10-08T08:55:00.001-07:00

This week we worked on and turned in our computer graphics assignments. I really had fun with this. I especially enjoyed making my free hand picture in Paint. I LOVE Paint. I have been rather obsessed with it since I was like 5, so I am also very proficient in it. I made a picture of Odie from Garfield. Now, I personally prefer using GIMP to edit my pictures - as opposed to the Windows Picture Editor. GIMP is essentially a free, open source version of PhotoShop. If I could suggest any one thing to do differently for future ED 350 classes, it would be to explore and include GIMP. It is an amazing program (and it's FREE!). I have used it SO much over the past few years, and I am sure that I will use it tons as a teacher.
We also began to discuss our PowerPoint projects, which I think should be interesting. I've never really used PowerPoint before - I've used the free/Open Office version of it once or twice, but that's it. So I'm looking forward to those projects. I know that teachers are using PowerPoint more and more these days in the classrooms, so I'm sure that this will be beneficial.

Week of Sept. 22

2009-10-04T08:54:00.000-07:00

This week I concentrated on my podcast assignments, which I worked on mostly at home (I think that most people at least recorded themselves talking at home - firstly because it can be a bit too loud in the classroom, causing too much background noise, and secondly because it can be a bit embarrassing recording yourself talking about yourself in the middle of a classroom). I'm enjoying working on it, though. I've never made a podcast before, so it is all very new to me. I especially had fun with the sound clips - like a lightsaber and a clip from Grease. I e-mailed my links in on the 24th. With the background music I chose for my introduction podcast, however, I kind-of think that it makes it sound like one of those sad, sappy commercials with the pictures of the sad little children or animals (during which, my husband always has to say, "No, we cannot get another cat!"). But overall, I had a lot of fun with the podcasts. I think that especially the introduction podcast will be useful during my college career.

Week of Oct. 20

2009-10-02T12:45:00.000-07:00

This week we began going over the instructions for our webpages. Mr. Dean had warned us that we might be discouraged by the amount of work involved, but I honestly think it sounds pretty fun. My husband is a big computer programmer/website designer, so I am SOMEWHAT familiar with the process - though I usually only help with the "pretty" part of it - picking out templates on Joomla, picking out how to organize the site, etc. It will be interesting to do a website of my own.

We also turned in our webpage exercises today, which I thought were fairly easy. However, I did them on the new version of Dreamweaver that I downloaded...which is A LOT different than the version the instructions were made for. That fact was really the only hard part of the exercise. I also had some confusion with the example page looking different than the instructions said to make it (like the border around the picture and text in exercise 1 that was supposed to be invisible according to the directions). I just made my exercises like the example page - it was not much to change, and I figured that I would ask Mr. Dean when I got to class...which I did (and he said that either way was fine).

Week of Sept. 15

2009-09-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

This week we worked more on our web resource project. This project took a LONG time...though I really enjoyed some of the websites that I found from it. In fact, I wasted quite a bit of time playing on some of the educational games that I found (intended for like 2nd graders). I think that I might definitely use some of these sites in the future.
We also discussed web clustering...a concept which still confuses me some, honestly. I asked my husband about it, as well, but I am still a bit unsure about it. I think I am just over-analyzing it (that is usually my problem).

Week of Sept. 8

2009-09-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

This week we only had class on Tuesday (the 8th). We worked mostly on our Web Resource Database Project - which is very time consuming! We also went over webquests. I had never heard of webquests before, but I can already see how helpful they can be to teachers. I think that the Web Resource Database Project is an excellent way of introducing us to such resources that are available to teachers. The resources that I'm finding are very educational, yet very interactive. I think that they are the kinds of activities that would get kids' attention, but it would still allow them to learn. As time consuming as this project may be, I do think that it will be beneficial and I could possibly even use some of the resources I'm finding in the future. The ALEX website is also very helpful, and I am sure that I will be using that many times in the future (especially in college, when forming sample lesson plans!).

Week of Sept. 1

2009-09-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

We spent a lot of time this week going over various Microsoft Office Word tools and processes. This included many that I was already familiar with, such as changing margins, page breaks, editing fonts, editing graphics, etc. However, I also learned a few things from this. For example, I had never heard of tracking changes. I think it's an awesome application for Word, and I think it will really come in handy in the future. I also didn't know about the different types of breaks. I have always just used Cntrl + Enter to apply a page break. Being able to use a continuous break can really come in handy when I need to apply different page settings to different sections.

I also really appreciated learning about how to make a matching table section for a test. I had already started the assignment early, but I had a bit of trouble when I got to the matching part. I could make a 2x5 table with the correct information in the cells, but I could only number them all together (as opposed to numbers on the left column and letters on the right column). Now I know the proper way: make the table, fill the left column and apply the numbering to that column; then fill the right column and apply the lettering to that column.

Week of Aug. 25

2009-08-27T14:54:00.001-07:00

This week, we only had class on Thursday. On Thursday, however, we began by discussing the "Teaching with Technology" article. The article discussed the different types of educational technology used in classrooms, the levels of technology adoption that different teachers reach, and more. The definition they use of technology isn't limited to mechanical equipment - educational technology applies to books, worksheets, chalk boards, dry erase boards, informational videos, etc. as well. The major stages of technological adoption that teachers can reach include familiarization (learning about it), utilization (beginning to use it themselves), integration (beginning to use it inn the classroom and relying on it), reorientation (looking over its current valu ein the classroom to see if it's in the students' best interest), and evolution (remaining open and acknowledging the fact that educational technology is always changing).

In class, we began to review Windows. For our Windows exercise, we just had to set up a folder to save our files in. We also started our blogs (obviously). We discussed the Word exercises, and I also began to work on those.